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O Canada, Our Home and Branded Land

It’s amazing what you get used to when living in a foreign country. I’m back in Toronto right now for a extended visit and working in my company’s offices over here. It’s been great to get a look into the Canadian media scene and see what another market is like.

Walking through the streets of downtown Toronto, I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of advertising. It’s blantant, full-on and seems to be very effective – Canadians are very brand-savvy and very aware of current advertising campaigns. Digital outdoor is big here and Canadian advertisers are taking full advantage. Yonge and Dundas Square, smack dab in the middle of downtown Toronto, has been redone to resemble a very tacky Times Square and it’s not pretty. It’s like being punched in the face by brands.

Coming from a digital background, all of this shouldn’t be a huge surprise to me with the heavy product integration that the likes of Bebo and MySpace offer, but what is startling is how accepting people over here seem to be towards it. Now bearing in mind this analysis only comes from a straw poll of my mates, it appears that they liked the LG and Clairol placements and thought that it made the show seem “more realistic”.